Real world mileage with 2.5 and CVT

I didn't see a thread dealing with actual mileage on the newer Legacy/Outback with the CVT so I thought I'd start one. I'm pretty sure the EPA rating is higher than with the old 4AT so let's see what we're actually getting.

I wasn't sure how "full" the dealer had mine on delivery but I filled it 4 days later and had 25+/-, which was all in town and some of it in snow. On the next tank I drove it up into the mountains, we live at 5100 feet and went over some high passes (through the Eisenhower tunnel and 10,000 at Vail pass) and then back again 3 days later. Most of that was at 65-70 MPH.

I got 29.6 MPG on that tank which I thought was great. Only about 30 miles of that was non freeway and obviously the downhill coming back really helped offset going up, but still I'm pretty happy.

Comments

Easypar, Is this drivetrain in an Outback or Legacy (in order to define performance vs.weight)? While traveling I-70, did the car feel underpowered? My wife and I test drove a 2010 Outback 3.6R Premium w/HK & Moon, and a 2.5i Limited w/Moon. We're unsure if the size and weight of the 2010 Outback would overwhelm the H-4 in terms of acceleration/performance; Are the increased cost of the H-6 and lower MPG's worth it? Your insight would be appreciated.Merry Christmas,Matt.

Sorry I didn't put that in, it's a Legacy. There were just the two of us adults, one set of skis, boots and cold weather gear, a couple of changes of clothes and some groceries we were taking for a dinner party.

We didn't feel it was underpowered and that had been a concern of my wife's when we first looked. I've generally been driving V6s and V8s but as I've gotten older my right foot has gotten a bit "lighter".

When I went with my son when he bought his H-4 CVT Outback, we had three big dudesin it for a test drive. We pulled a fairly steep highway grade up a hill for about 1.5 miles at an elevation of about 4,500 to about 75 MPH before he eased off. The car performed adequately pulling that grade without much fuss, it could have gone more for sure.

Test drive the H-4 at highway speeds and judge for yourself.

The H-6 will cost about $3,000 more for equivalent trim packages and get 4 less on the mpg per EPA. On the other hand there's no substitue for power especaily for crunch highway passing. Decisions decisions.

Hi all, well I'm at the end of my first tank of gas (provided by dealership) and am only getting 24mpg combined 35mph side roads and highway. I drive "like an old lady" so I'm usually aware to not over-rev the car. Is this usual for the first tank of gas on my 2.5i with CVT? Thanks! G.

That's about what I got with my first/dealer tank. I don't think they had it "topped off" like I do. Actually the sticker say 23MPG/city, so that for a first tank is not off. BTW, are you in an Outback or a Legacy?

The first tank will often show very low mileage, as a dealership will often not fill it all the way up, plus the first however-many-miles-before-you-bought-it likely included quite a bit of idling, etc., that yielded very poor mileage. Usually when I buy a car, the readout average is right around 10 mpg. So, if the dealer did not reset the trip meter when the tank was filled, the result at the end of the tank will be depressed.

35-45 mph is actually a good speed to achieve excellent fuel economy if little or no stopping is involved, so keep an eye on the economy and look for it to improve with even the next tank. If you are in an area that uses winter-blend fuel, the economy will jump later in the year, as well.

I just filled up and got 26.96mpg on this tank. About 1/4 of it was interstate the rest was in town, some of it with my mountain bike on the back. Considering that the car still has less than 1100 miles on it I'm happy.

I just finished a 515 mile tank, all but about 50 of those miles were from Salt Lake City back to Ft. Collins-Interstate 80 to US 287. About 150 of that was during some snowy conditions so I had to keep the speed a bit lower, the rest was at 70-75mph.

The car had me, my ski gear and some extra weight I was carrying for a buddy. I'm still a couple of hundred short of 3,000 miles on the car-Legacy-2.5-CVT.

32.2 on this tank, for a not yet broken in or oil changed engine I'm pretty happy.

I'm in the market for a 2010 Outback and would love to know what kind of mileage people are seeing on the 3.6r. It seems there is plenty of feedback on the smaller 4-cyl and I'm just trying to weigh my options vs. cost. Thanks in advance for your feedback.

Yes on the snow. The rpms would get up as high as 2500 when climbing the mountains at 70 mph, but that's not high enough to make objectionable noise - at least to my ear. I think Subaru designed the engine with enough torque at a low enough rpm that the engine doesn't have to spin up to keep it rolling up a hill. I think the rpms were about 1900 at 70mph when on flat ground. If you're not in a big hurry - the 2.5 w/CVT is a very nice drivetrain.

For what it's worth, our 2009 Legacy 2.5i Limited is pushing around 32-33mpg highway with the 4AT, we recently took around a 400 mile round trip from NJ to central PA. Cruise Control was on a majority of the time once we got out of NJ. I think it's great, because the specs for it say that the EPA mileage is in the mid 20's for highway. Combined and city it seems to drop into the low to mid 20's, but I've never seen it drop into the teens.

And that's good enough for me. I used to own a Jeep Wrangler that got 9 mpg if I was lucky on the highway. It also couldn't go faster than 60mph and had a tendency to catch on fire. :P

Mileage update for our Graphite '10 OB 2.5i CVT Premium w/mnrf. Miles were driven on surface roads in SW Chicago suburbs with 2693 mi. on odometer. Drove 366.1 mi. and filled with 14.7 gal. of 87 octane (lowest octane rating in Chicago area). According to the OB's mileage display this gave 26.1 MPG, manually this gave 24.9 MPG. So why the difference in mileage?......After refilling the tank, resetting the trip odometer, and clearing the avg. MPG in the computer, I noticed something. The needle on the fuel economy meter was not moving; It was fixed in the negative position until 1.0 miles were registered on the trip odo. Additionally, the avg. MPG indicator in the dashboard did not give a reading unil the trip odo showed 1.0 miles. Does this mean the computer calculates avg. MPG based on whole miles only?? Is this the source of the difference??So I checked my math using the numbers from our last tank: 366.1 mi. driven and 14.7gal. filled. Removing the value in the tenth position: 366/14=26.1 MPG = ComputerWith the value in the tenth position: 366.1/14.7=24.9 MPG = Manual What do you think? Does the same hold true for your calculations?

I too noticed that the needle on the "fuel economy" (vacuum) gauge doesn't move for the first mile or so. As to the difference between avg and actual mileage I always chalked that up to the fact that the "real time" reading is an extrapolation based on MPH and RPM and maybe even temperature and climb/descent attitude.

I didn't realize you could "clear" the reading on the dashboard. I notice you wrote "average MPG", mine (Legacy Limited) has a distance to empty reading. Most of my other cars have allowed me to change the dashboard settings. Maybe I should read the owner's manual :confuse:

Extrapolation??? Two points for you. The temp here has been cold and the terrain is basically flat. There are 2 pegs in the gauge cluster, one left and one right. The left toggles and clears the trip odo's. The right toggles and clears the display in the dashboard. In the dash display, there are displays for avg. MPG, instant MPG, and distance to empty. You can toggle through the different displays at any time, but when the peg is depressed and held on a particular display, it will reset. We leave the display on the avg. MPG setting and reset it, and the trip odo, after refilling the fuel tank, prior to leaving the fuel station. Back in the day, my grandparents' Chevy Caprice wagon (the family Trukster) had a gauge that indicated instant fuel economy like our OB does. Weird.